African Wars

Dawoud is on the run from his murky past, aiming to discover where he belongs. He tries to assimilate into different groups along his journey through North Africa and Israel, changing his clothes, his religious affiliations, and even his name to fit in, but the safety and peace he seeks remain elusive. It seems prejudice is everywhere, holding him back, when all he really wants is to create a simple life he can call his own. A chameleon, Dawoud—or David, Adal, or Dawit, depending on where and when you meet him—is not lost in this whirl of identities. In fact, he is defined by it.

In the early hours of June 6, 1944, the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, a unit of African American soldiers, landed on the beaches of France. Their orders were to man a curtain of armed balloons meant to deter enemy aircraft. One member of the 320th would be nominated for the Medal of Honor, an award he would never receive because the nation's highest decoration was not given to black soldiers in World War II.

According to tribal law, an aging Maasai king must face the challenge of a young warrior or abdicate the throne.

When a small team of former special operators land in Tanzania to grab a local warlord, it's business as usual. But the situation quickly changes when they learn that a pride of lions has been feeding on the local populace. Unable to walk away leaving the locals to fend for themselves, the seasoned warriors are drawn into a conflict unlike anything they've ever taken part in. As they struggle to understand their new enemy, they're led deeper and deeper into the unforgiving Tanzanian wilderness.

Through the years, since Apartheid ended officially in 1994, a lot was written about the South African Police Force (SAP), the country’s National Police Force. Not all of the books were true to facts and many with a clear left-wing liberal political motive behind them. Many “anti” books were published, especially by the mainstream publishing houses and although they have a function and fulfilled a financial need, the Mean Streets Series is not like that. This is a story of a man, a junior officer that grew up in Apartheid South Africa and joined the Police at age 18 with the specific ...

Surrounded by a ring of fire, the scorpion stings itself to death. The image, widespread among antislavery leaders before the Civil War, captures their long-standing strategy for peaceful abolition: They would surround the slave states with a cordon of freedom. They planned to use federal power wherever they could to establish freedom. For their part the southern states fully understood this antislavery strategy. They cited it repeatedly as they adopted secession ordinances in response to Lincoln's election.

In All Things Must Fight to Live, Bryan Mealer takes listeners on a harrowing 2000 mile journey through Congo, where gun-toting militia still rape and kill with impunity. Amidst burnt-out battlefields where armies still wrestle for control, into the dark corners of the forests, and along the high savanna, where thousands have been slaughtered and quickly forgotten, Mealer searches for signs that Africa's most troubled state will soon rise from ruin.

The Italians were defeated at Adwa in 1898. But by 1935, they were playing for keeps. Learn more about the devastating Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Although the Ethiopians had beaten the Italians at their own game in the 1898 Battle of Adwa, when Italian armored divisions began pouring out of Italian-controlled Eritrea in 1935, the situation seemed almost impossible to overcome.

A brave, unforgettable first-hand account of the Rwandan genocide by a man almost literally haunted by the dead and by the spectre of his mission's failure. Marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of this horrific event, this edition includes a new note from Roméo Dallaire.

The first in a fantastically funny new history series from the acclaimed Tony Robinson, who takes you on a headlong gallop through time, pointing out all the most important, funny, strange, amazing, entertaining, smelly and disgusting bits about the Egyptians! It's history, but not as we know it!

We often think of slavery as a southern phenomenon, far removed from the booming cities of the North. But even though slavery had been outlawed in Gotham by the 1830s, Black New Yorkers were not safe. Not only was the city built on the backs of slaves; it was essential in keeping slavery and the slave trade alive.

Craving adventure beyond the tourist trail? Immerse yourself in the raw, evocative stories of "Beegu City," a portal to the windswept plains of West Turkana, Kenya. These tales, woven from the fabric of actual experience, offer a candid glimpse into the life of an expatriate navigating the challenges and unexpected joys of living in a foreign land. Brace for a visceral journey: Beyond tourist brochures: Encounter a world of vibrant characters, from weathered locals to fellow adventurers, all forging their paths in this unique landscape. Gritty realism: Feel the sting of the sun, the fear of...

When John Brown decided to raid the federal armory in Harper's Ferry as the starting point of his intended liberation effort in the South, some closest to him thought it was unnecessary and dangerous. Frederick Douglass, a pioneering abolitionist, refused Brown's invitation to join him in Virginia, believing that the raid on the armory was a suicide mission. Yet in front of Douglass, "Emperor" Shields Green, a fugitive from South Carolina, accepted John Brown's invitation. When the raid failed, Emperor was captured with the rest of Brown's surviving men and hanged on December 16, 1859.

Widely praised and winner of the 2023 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, this book illuminates why Lincoln’s unprecedented welcoming of African American men and women to the White House transformed the trajectory of race relations in the United States. From his 1862 meetings with Black Christian ministers, Lincoln began inviting African Americans of every background into his home, from ex-slaves from the Deep South to champions of abolitionism such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth.

In inimitable, rhythmic prose, the author and winner of the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize Emmanuel Iduma tells the story of his return to Nigeria, where he grew up, after years of living in New York. He traveled home with an elusive mission: to learn the fate of his uncle Emmanuel, his namesake, who disappeared in the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s. A conflict that left so many families broken, the war remains at the margins of the history books, almost taboo to discuss. To find answers, Iduma stopped in city after city throughout the former Biafra region.

A Plausible Man unfolds as a historical detective story, as Susanna Ashton combs obscure records for evidence of Jackson's remarkable flight from slavery to freedom, his quest to liberate his enslaved family, and his emergence as an international advocate for abolition. This fresh and original work takes us through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the restoration of white supremacy-where we last glimpse Jackson losing his freedom again on a Southern chain gang.

With no way out, she’ll face a pissed-off artificial intelligence and two killers… Lena’s ready to put it all behind her. She helped catch two killers who used CyberCorp to commit murder, and starting right now, she vows never to set foot inside the company’s headquarters again. But when those killers show up at CyberCorp Tower to confess everything they’ve hidden, Lena can’t resist seeing justice done. As she steels herself to confront them again, decommissioned androids go berserk inside the headquarters, forcing a lockdown. Lena is trapped inside not only with the killers she...

On September 17, 1961, Dag Hammarskjöld boarded a Douglas DC6 propeller plane on the sweltering tarmac of the airport in Leopoldville, the capital of the Congo. Hours later, he would be found dead in an African jungle with an ace of spades playing card placed on his body. Hammarskjöld had been the head of the United Nations for nine years. He was legendary for his dedication to peace on Earth.

This timely book offers a world history of insurgencies and of counterinsurgency warfare. Jeremy Black moves beyond the conventional Western-centric narrative, reaching back to antiquity to trace the pre-modern origins of war within states. His sweeping study will be essential material for all students of military history.

In a nation teetering on the edge, one man must unravel the truth before it's too late. A British diplomat is kidnapped in Tunisia, and a web of intrigue unravels, revealing a sinister plot that threatens to plunge the nation into chaos. Peter Craig, a British police advisor, is in Tunis at the behest of the Tunisian government to lend his expertise on security matters. However, within a day of his arrival, he's caught in a whirlwind of clandestine encounters, including an unsettling kidnapping. As Craig delves deeper, he uncovers a network of revolutionary groups, each with their own ...